All the Pretty Little Paris Meals

I just got back from a weekend in Paris–breathless! It seems a touch self-indulgent, and I certainly hope I don’t make any readers smug and miserable, but I had to share with you what I ate:

Friday

Warm white asparagus with vinaigrette and baguette, with French onion soup on rue de Buci

A fresh galette sarrasin made before my eyes and stuffed with only shredded Gruyère from L’Avant Comptoir

Lobster salad with chiffonade preserved lemon peel, purple potato chips, sucrine lettuce, avocado, and haricots verts remoulade was followed by a seasonal assiette de legumes, a little pot of creamy brebis with honey, and a vanilla pot de creme, my favorite, at Le Comptoir. And a requisite carafe de vin blanc.

Saturday

A smoked salmon tartine with half a pain au chocolat and a pink grapefruit pressé at Les Deux Magots.

Peaches and pears bought from the fruit market on rue de Seine and devoured on the point of Ile de la Cité.

A lunch of flûte, caviar d’aubergines, and tomme noire de Pyrenées, bought from Monoprix, was devoured in the Luxembourg gardens

Dinner at Pères et Filles. Tartare of crab, cucumber, and green apple, and more white asparagus with herb vinaigrette. Then, seven-hour braised lamb shank and fennel with rosemary, and a veal milanese with black olive polenta. Another bottle of white. And for dessert, Grom pistachio and vanilla.

Back to Le Compoir for a three-hour lunch with friends. A bottle of Côtes de Provence.

Mozzarella sweating milk and covered with fresh spring basil pistou. A salad of sucrine and spring vegetables. And then tuna, just seared, with loose Provençal pistou and tapenade, topped with a garden of soft, sweet, seared spring vegetables. Riz au lait with fresh caramel. And the nougat snatched from Mr. English’s espresso saucer.

And my last bite at the Eurostar train station: a bag of old-fashioned potato chips. I am an American in Paris, after all.

To make raspberry rose sorbet, buy a really good raspberry sorbet. Leave it out just long enough so that it is slightly soft. Add rosewater to taste, and stir it in as well as possible. Refreeze. I also like to add shards of white chocolate when I add the rosewater.